Happy New Year friend! I always enjoy putting together the LF SELECTS MIX each year and sharing it with you. Thanks for stopping in to pick up the mix. It was a marvelous year for music! I spend 12 hours a day listening to tunes as I illustrate in the creative cave. So over the span of a year I have quite a collection to pull from. Which makes it quite a challenge to narrow it down to the favorites.

I created the mix with a SIDE A and SIDE B. Each side has a favorite track from each fav-o artist. In a few cases some of my TOP fav-o artists got 4 tracks, so a few only got 1. Each side has 50 tracks. yep. 100 total! I did say I have a hard time narrowing it down from the 1,000's of tracks collected! So you have plenty of toe tapping, slow dancing, heart breaking, rump shaking tunes to celebrate the new year with!

For the cover art, I was inspired by the idea of how music brings peace (and dance parties) to the space it fills. 2015 was quite a wild year for our world! Life in the creative cave was no exception - had a mix of difficult challenges and blessed opportunities. I hope your year was filled with a bounty of blessings and victories in the midst of challenges too. So as you head into 2016, my hope for you is this: When life's ravenous foxes come digging at the door, may this mix help calm the savage beasts life brings.

A monsteroulsly magnificent year of music was enjoyed daily in the creative cave in 2014. I find massive amounts of inspiration in creating as I tap my toes to tunes that fit the mood of the day or project. I hope these mixes bring a bit of that brilliant energy to your days too!

Each year I drop songs into a playlist throughout the year, it becomes quite a beast. By years end it's quite difficult to make the cuts for the FRESH SELECTS MIX. This year I decided to do a MAIN MIX and a VARIANT MIX.

I took my top two tracks from each artist I found as a favorite this year, then split those into 2 mixes. So you basically get an A side and B side from those artists. Plus I dropped in a few random artists that I just had to include 1 track of.

Notice: technically some of these albums are not FROM 2014, but most are. Some are artists I discoverd in 2014, but the tracks may be from an older album on occassion. I try to keep it FRESH from 2014 as best I can.

LF SONG OF THE YEAR: NEW YORK KISS by SPOON(I made my first trip to NYC this year, and absolutely fell in love with the city. This song reminds me of that time instantly)

LF TOP 3 ARTISTS OF THE YEAR:FUTURE ISLANDS (long time favorite, saw them live for the first time. unforgettable performance)STRAND OF OAKS (another long time favorite, his new album captured so many emotions of my year)THE OPERATORS (anything Dan Boeckner is part of, it's a top band for me. Brilliant debut album!)

LF ALBUM OF THE YEAR:FUTURE ISLANDS - SINGLES (every songs a favorite. one of those you listen to straight through. then repeat.)

LF FAVORITE NEW ARTIST FIND OF THE YEAR:SHAKEY GRAVES (connected instantly with the sound, lyrics and eclectic nature of their sound)